Russia, US generals hold critical call after "Oreshnik" missile strike on Ukraine

Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of Russia’s Armed Forces, and Charles Brown, Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces, had a telephone conversation discussing the incident involving the use of the Russian ballistic missile Oreshnik on Ukraine and other topics.

During the call, General Gerasimov told Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the Oreshnik ballistic missile launch had been planned long before the Biden administration agreed to allow Ukraine to use American ATACMS to strike deeper into Russia, officials said, Caliber.Az reports, citing US media.

The rare phone call took place on November 27, the day before Thanksgiving and just six days after Russia launched a new, nuclear-capable, intermediate-range ballistic missile at Ukraine that Vladimir Putin said was in response to Ukraine’s use of American and British weapons to strike deeper into Russia.

Though the "Oreshnik" missile carried only conventional warheads, using it signalled that Russia could strike with nuclear weapons if it chose. The missile struck a Ukrainian weapons facility in Dnipro.

The call came at a tense time. Putin had escalated an already tense showdown with the West, asserting that Russia had the right to strike the military facilities of countries “that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities.”

“The regional conflict in Ukraine, previously provoked by the West, has acquired elements of a global character,” Putin said in a rare address to the nation at the time.

“We are developing intermediate- and shorter-range missiles as a response to US plans to produce and deploy intermediate- and shorter-range missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.”

Putin’s comments came as Biden loosened restrictions that he had kept in place for much of the war. He authorized the use of those missiles, known as ATACMS, for Army Tactical Missile Systems, deeper into Russia, and Ukraine has used them, including in a November 2024 strike on an ammunition depot in southwestern Russia, according to Ukrainian officials.

In November, the Biden administration also approved supplying Ukraine with American anti-personnel mines to bolster defences against Russian attacks as front lines in Ukraine’s east buckled.

By Khagan Isayev